Sometimes a doctor’s appointment is approached casually, as though nothing really important is going to happen. That was how my wife and I told each other how we felt before the oncologist meeting on Monday. We were just going to find out if there were to be more chemotherapy or just radiation and when the treatments would begin.
We knew the last of the staples and the drainage tubes were coming out Thursday and what a relief that would be. No matter how those bags were held, there was always a certain amount of tugging from them on where they attached to the body, and that hurt. After they were gone, ordinary movement return and my wife could take an ordinary shower, new steps on the road to recovery.
When the doctor came into the examination room, however, those things were not the first topic he wanted to talk about. And we both knew it, but we didn’t talk about it. With a big smile, he told us the results of the tissue tests. All signs of the breast cancer were gone. There was no need for further chemotherapy. She would undergo five days a week for six weeks of radiation to make sure every last cancer cell was dead. She would be there only 30 minutes each day, and the procedure was like getting an x-ray, with few if any ill effects. Of course, it would still be a while before she will have the energy to go out to dinner or a movie, but that’s really just an inconvenience.
I think the doctor spent more time telling my wife what a trooper she had been during the rigorous six months of chemotherapy, and that he had never seen anyone so brave and have such a good sense of humor about the whole experience. He even gave her a hug. I’ve never seen a doctor give out hugs before.
On the way home we both finally confided to each other we were concerned about what that report would say. Neither of us could shake the melodramatic notion that during the operation the doctor noticed the cancer had spread and that nothing else could be done. They didn’t say anything to us at the time because they wanted us to have a final few days of relief before finding out the truth. Neither of us shared our suspicions because we didn’t want to scare the other one with our silly fears.
Thank goodness they were silly fears, and the truth was better news than we could have suspected. I think it was particularly hard on each of us because for the last 44 years we have immediately shared every last emotion and thought which went through our bodies. Some people call that TMI, too much information, but we call it love.